As strange as it may seems, for someone like me who discovered Phish in 1997 and who downloaded countless tapes for the 97/98 era, I'm totally new to this show. I've never heard of the "Tweezabella" from Set 2 before last week, so it's with a virgin state of mind that I woke up this morning at around 6 AM to download my daily phix.

The first set starts oddly like a reversed set 2 with Golgi Apparatus and Run Like An Antelope. The second song already sets the tone for the night when you didn't expect it with a 10 minutes improvisation that goes seamlessly from funk to rock.Train Song provides the first rest before the boys alternate big funky combos (Bathtub Gin > Foam and Fee > Maze) with fast rocking numbers (Sample in a Jar and Cavern).The quiet little jam out of Fee merges into the intro of a Trey-leaded Maze that goes in every directions and ends in a big peak before coming back to the quiet outro. Roller-coaster style.

I would be happy if Phish got together every now and then and recorded new jams like this for livephish.com

If touring is going to be an unworkable situation for the band...they should do this stuff on their own. Be a digital band. Screw the tours, screw the major label hassle...if the only way Phish can come back is by being radically different, while still moving forward, i think this is a great answer. No 3,000 person guest list, no lot scene...just new, great music with no pressure.

Later tonight, I'll be watching my first Phish concert live at it happens. Yes, I'll be in my living room, chatting with Holger, during the webcast of theNew Year's Eve show at Madison Square Garden, New York.

Holger has been live-facebooking during the first 3 nights. You can seen what happened and follow us tonight on EU Phans, Phish Phans in Europe page on facebook.

See you tonight ?

Last but not least, Phish has just released today an archival show from 20 years ago exactly !

Here is the official announcement followed by a last minute chrstmas gift.

Phish had a busy year in 1991, signing a record deal with Elektra Records and touring coast-to-coast for a total of more than 130 shows including a fourteen-show tour with a three-piece horn section and the first unofficial Phish festival at Amy’s Farm. That summer Phish also recorded their third studio album, "A Picture Of Nectar". White Crow Studios in Burlington, Vermont provided the backdrop for Nectar’s namesake with engineering duties covered by Kevin Halpin and Jon Altschiller. While Jon was still getting his start as an engineer, he was also a fan and was among the dozen-or-so tapers at The New Aud for the band's New Year's Eve concert. Thanks to his work on Nectar, Jon was allowed to set up his microphones inside the front-of-house position. He also managed to snag a then-rare soundboard patch from FOH engineer Paul Languedoc.

Fast forward to 2010 when Jon returned to work with Phish on the road as LivePhish.com remote engineer and the seeds were sown for the release of this classic show. Twenty years later, Jon combined his audience and soundboard DAT recordings to create the matrix for The New Aud release. Mastered by Fred Kevorkian, this unique source is a proper document of the show, combining the qualities of both sources and harnessing the electricity that characterized this special performance.

For your listening and sharing pleasure...please feel free to download and share (by stream, download or broadcast) the following track from this archival show:

What about the gift ? I have two livephish.com codes to download a free show of your choice. You can use it to download tonight NYE show, of the one from 20 years ago, or any show you want ! Just leave a message here with your new year's resolution and the two first will win.

In response to the recent earthquake and tsunami that the people of the northeastern part of Japan have endured JEMP Records is releasing "7/31/99, Field of Heaven, Fuji Rock Festival, Niigata, JAPAN" as benefit CD & download at Phish Dry Goods and livephish.com to benefit Peace Winds America http://peacewindsamerica.org. 100% of the funds Peace Winds America collects for disaster relief will go to support operations through their sister organization, Peace Winds Japan. Relief operations began March 15th and are currently underway in Miuyagi Prefecture, where Peace Winds is on the ground providing food, clothing, medicines and temporary shelter to survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

7/31/99 was recorded by Paul Languedoc and mastered by Fred Kevorkian. We'd like to thank Fred and the folks at Nugs.net and Music Today for donating their efforts to this cause.

The expected release date of the download at livephish.com will be April 15th. The expected ship date of the CD will be May 10th.

Immediately following their 1999 U.S. summer tour, Phish traveled abroad for their first ever shows in Japan. Fuji Rock Festival took place on multiple stages and the festival had specially designed the "Field Of Heaven" stage for Phish to play three consecutive nights of complete, two-set headline shows.

This release features Phish’s entire show from July 31, 1999 – the middle, Saturday night as well as “What’s The Use?” from their soundcheck on July 29th. The July 31st show crackled with energy, intermingling classic and new material with an exploratory vibe that meshed with the atmosphere of respect and beauty.

Set one had many high points including standout performances of “My Friend, My Friend”, “Back On The Train”, “Limb By Limb” and “Character Zero”. Set two started in the stratosphere with a “2001” > “David Bowie” opener that proved the most experimental music played at Fuji Rock transposed against the gentle beauty of “Wading In The Velvet Sea”. Set two also featured one of the all-time great renditions of “Prince Caspian”, a smoking “Fluffhead” and mystical “Simple”. The encore provided a chance for friend and fellow musician Nawang Khechog to address the crowd about Tibetan human rights and perform with Fish on vacuum for a meditative jam with Fish and with the whole band on flute for a special “Brian And Robert”. Japan proved a perfect host for Phish, the Field Of Heaven has survived ever since as part of Fuji Rock Festival and Phish has maintained a strong connection with Japan, weaving Japanese lyrics into “The Meatstick” as recently as New Year’s Eve 2010-2011.

In the past, charitable downloads at LivePhish.com have raised over $100,000 for four non-profits: the Harbor House of New Jersey (The Headphones Jam), the New Orleans Musician's Clinic, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fund (Katrina Relief) and the American Red Cross (Haiti Relief). Additionally, the Mockingbird Foundation receives funding on an on-going basis from the proceeds at LivePhish.com.

I hate special offers... when it comes in a time when I can't buy anything.

LivePhish.com is currently offering 25% off all 2010 CDs until tuesday. This means that every show is available for 17.25$ instead of 23$ (except for Halloween which is 22.50 instead of 30$).So all 29 summer tour shows can be bought for 500.25$ only and the fall tour is 264$. Even the "buy all in once" packages are more expensive as they're respectively 600.30$ and 315.25$ (you only save 10%).

Pff... 44 Phish shows in CDs for 570€ is a damned good deal ! That's 12,95€ a show, 4,31€ a CD (as most shows are on 3 CDs)...

Damned, I realise that I write more about money (spending or saving) than music on a Phish blog...

We're just about 10 days before the first show of the Summer tour and Phish has announced what I feard the most after a break-up : every show of this sumemr tour will be available on CD from livephish.com !

I've always been reluctant to buy every show of a tour as a downloadable format but I'm a collector for everything's physical. I feared that kind of announcement because it means a lot of money to get the full set ($600.30 if you buy all 29 shows at once) or a strugle with myslef to accept that I miss a part of my Phish collection.Last time I waited to buy a full set of shows, I ended not having them all because they became unavailable.I compared the different possibilities to buy them separatly and I think I'll go with the multi-shows way. It finally cost 15€ more but I don't have to send $600 in one transaction and I can space out purchases.

Anyway, I can't wait to wake up in the morning and grab my dayly dose of Phish to listen during the day at the office. Last summer was great because of that. I even convinced myself not to listen to any Phish for several week to start this summer with a fresh mind.

I heard this expression when livephish.com released the Headphone Jam during de 2004/2009 break. The idea was that Phish would become a virtual band, not performing live but gathering on some occasion to record hour long free form jam. They would still be "broken up" but still playing in a way. I thought it was a good alternative at a time when reunion wasn't even hoped.

But from my point of view, Phish has always been a virtual band. I discovered them in 1997 with a studio album dating back from 1988. As i've never heard about them, I thought they were disbanded for long. Then I became aware that they were still playing lot of shows and starts following them on the Internet.

My computer has always been, and still is, my only link with the band. Browsing several websites and blogs about the band and fans, downloading audience or soundboard recordings of almost every show, watching, at first very poor and then very good quality, videos is a everyday occupation.I remember watching songs' name appearing in setlists. At one time, some where only names as I haven't listened to them yet. I discovered Mike's Song, for example, with Slip Stitch and Pass.

Internet is also the almost exclusive way to buy Phish related material, although I managed in 1999 and 2000 to buy somes albums at my local store in France. This was possible, I think, because the band toured sporadicly in Europe and Japan from 97 to 2000, so their releases were better distributed outside the US. So I bought a lot of Phish albums, live releases, boxsets, dvds, books, goodies, promo cds. All of that gave me a rather complete view of the band, their music and their career, but in a virtual way. There hasn't been any physical connexion because everything went thought the computer.

Oh wait, There's one ! I managed to buy the Green Sparow, Mike Gordon's last studio album, with a signed booklet. The signed booklet was added to the package along with a regular sealed CD. I understand that it's a lot easier for every one (including Mike) to have a pill of single booklets signed without having to open a cd, pull out the booklet, sign it, pull back it inside and then send it.

Phish is the only active band that have a big impact on me that I've never seen live in concert. In fact, Phish is the artist entity that had the most impact on me for my whole life. Bigger than Michael Jackson back in the 90's, who is the artist that woke up my musical tastes (and I got to see him live in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1997).The only other band for which I would travel the globe to see live is Pink Floyd. Another dream that I will never live for obvious reasons.

I felt very broken in 2004 when I knew about the break up, again by checking my emails. I cried when I read the news and I cried again on august 16th morning when I woke up and read the setlist and reports on the Internet.I feel almost as broken up since I took the decision last week not to go to the USA this summer. I always fear that a break up (or worst) can happen any time and that I will never see them, althought the musical and health situation for the band is very different now than in 2004. I'd never listened to the Las Vegas 2004 run since this week, and I'm glade to enjoy the music I heared in 2009.By the way, 2009 is the only year during which I listened to every single show played by Phish, at worst 2 days after it was played. In 2004, I listened to all of the summer tour but out of order and in the following month, without regularity. I started in January to listen to every 2002/2003 shows and even if it's not 1994 or 1998, I'm enjoying it very much.

By the way, what if all that music was fake ?

I thought about it from the very beginning when I didn't really know the songs and where to find shows. I happened to download concerts from other band (Cousin Fungus, String Cheese Incident, Dave Matthews Band, Greateful Dead, or other jam bands) without noticing at first it wasn't Phish. I even end up burning CDs and labelling CDs as Phish by mistake. At the end of the day, I was still enjoying all this new music, whatever the band was playing.The idea came then that, even if Phish wasn't really playing this music, I wouldn't care as long as I'm enjoying what I listen to. I mean Phish's music could be computer generated, the band could fake playing on stage (like lips-synch with instruments), all of their improvised moment could be writen in advance. Sure I'd be pissed to have been fooled but, man the music is fucking good ! That's why I enjoy live DJ sets like Daft Punk's Alive 2007. Everything is written and planed but the music is fun.

That's what's important after all : music.Phish can still be a virtual band playing (or faking) in a far away country, I don't care as long as I can listen every day of my life to new music from them.

I received yesterday the 4 Miami shows in miniSD USB Slots, like the Festival 8. I ordered them from livephish.com and they arrived in 10 days, so still quicker than Dry Goods.

I still have to take pictures of my Joy Box but I'm quite busy with a baby to take care of and a new game system to play with.Yes, I finally bought a Xbox 360 to complete my video game collection. Yes, the one I told I wouldn't buy in the first place... I'm glade I only pay 29€ for it but I bought some games too...

Despite all of that money spent, I wonder if I wouldn't go to the USA this summer to finally see Phish. If Phish doesn't come to you, come to them !

Notes: Divided Sky, Antelope and Weekapaug featured teases of Those Were the Days. This show featured the debuts of Axilla, FEFY, and Lengthwise and the Phish debut of I Walk The Line. The start of the second set included an Owner of a Lonely Heart tease. Mike’s Song included an Under Pressure jam. Weekapaug included a vocal jam ending and Price of Love teases. BBFCFM featured lyrics from I Walk The Line. Big Ball Jam also debuted, as Trey explained the concept and mentioned that it was written for Pete Shaw. Poor Heart, FEFY and Llama featured Gordon Stone on pedal steel guitar. Trey introduced Fish as “Eyeball Man” before Lengthwise, which was performed in more of a reggae style than other versions and featured a vacuum solo from Fishman. Bold As Love was played for the first time since April 18, 1990 (318 shows).